


See the Day Devour the Night

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: When Isabelle comes to visit, Raphael takes her out to one of his favorite places. There's a lot on his mind but he knows she'll meet his thoughts with a kind heart and honest opinion.Maybe he'll actually believe her this time.
Relationships: Isabelle Lightwood/Raphael Santiago
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: SHBingo





	See the Day Devour the Night

**Author's Note:**

> For the bingo square: Stargazing

Raphael knows that he’s the literal epitome of cliche just then, laying on the hood of his car next to a beautiful woman under a sky full of stars. They’re far enough away from the light pollution of the city that the dots of light are visible in the sky, in one of Raphael’s favorite secluded areas outside of Chicago he discovered entirely on accident after a few wrong turns.

Now it’s somewhere sacred to him, where he goes to escape the world around him for a little while. Normally he goes alone, but not tonight. Tonight he has the pleasure of being accompanied by none other than Isabelle Lightwood, who leans back on the cool metal next to him.

“Do you want my jacket?” Raphael offers, eyeing the short-sleeved dress she wears, imagining the chill of the cool metal of the car against far too much exposed skin for the start of spring, with a hint of winter chill still left behind.

“I’m fine,” Isabelle says. She hasn’t said much since they got here - he thinks that she can tell this place is special to him, and this is her way of preserving the sanctity of it. He appreciates that, but he isn’t in the mood for silence for once, not when he knows her visits are always few and far between and he wants to make the most of the time they have together before she dashes through a portal back to New York.

Back to the life he left behind.

“I used to hate the stars,” Raphael says abruptly.

Isabelle almost laughs - he can hear the start of it behind a huff of breath - but she cuts it off before it can form. “You hated the _stars?”_ she repeats, surprised. He gets it. It’s a strange thing to feel animosity towards, and he never actually admitted it to anyone else before just now.

“Yes. I hated the stars. I despised them. Most nights they weren’t even bright enough to be visible in the city, leaving me with nothing but a dark and unforgiving sky for so much of my life. And when I _could_ see them they would only come out and mock me: the only natural light I could experience safely, cool and distant, providing no comfort, no warmth…” Raphael closes his eyes, still able to see the imprints of the stars against the back of his eyelids now. “I hated that they were part of the only sky I’d ever get to see again.”

“Raph…” Isabelle says, her voice much softer than he’s used to hearing it. She shifts a little closer, reaching a hand out to find his own and thread her fingers through his.

“I was wrong. Obviously.” He holds his hand up to look at it, constantly surprised to note how many shades darker he is now that he isn’t confined to the moonlight. “All those years I never appreciated their true beauty, longing instead for what I couldn’t have.”

“I don’t think they blame you,” Isabelle offers. “No one would. You aren’t meant to love a prison.”

He’s surprised by her words, though he shouldn’t be. Of course, Isabelle would understand. She always has that way about her, even when it seems like she isn’t paying attention, to pick up on the slightest of nuances. She may play up her looks so people underestimate her, a mistake Raphael himself made not too long ago, but she’s as sharp as that whip of hers beneath it all.

“But we are supposed to appreciate what we have,” Raphael offers as a counterpoint.

Isabelle hums, considering. Then she falls silent again.

The silence, Raphael knows, he always appreciated and continues to do so now. Especially with Isabelle. It comes easily and there’s nothing awkward or uncomfortable about the minutes, or sometimes hours, they can spend in one another’s presence without saying a word. Sometimes the comfort of knowing the other is near is all they need.

“But you appreciate what you have now,” Isabelle says finally. He isn’t sure if he’s talking about the stars still, or something else. _Someone_ else. It’s true for both so he doesn’t ask her to clarify.

It’s a statement, not a question, but Raphael confirms anyway.

“I do.” He often wonders if it’s too little, too late.

“Me too,” Isabelle says, shifting so that they’re touching from shoulder to foot, lifting their joined hands from between them and laying them back down to rest over Raphael’s stomach. The touch, the weight, is comforting. “So we move forward and do better from now on. I think we’re going to be just fine.”

 _We_. There it is again. Something he hoped for once, with Isabelle - something he thought her addiction and his vampirism would make impossible, never wanting to put her into that position of temptation.

But then the heavenly fire burned away the impurity of the Yin Fen in her blood. And then he was human. And then none of their previous reservations mattered, and they didn’t have an excuse not to give this a real chance.

Can it be this easy? To start over, to try again, forgiven and with a blank slate?

...does he deserve any of it?

There’s another long silence between them, Raphael getting lost in his thoughts and Isabelle letting him, giving him the time and space he knows he needs. He thinks she might have fallen asleep out here, and then-

“Te amo, Raphael.”

Maybe it can be this easy. Maybe he can learn to love more than the stars again.

“Yo también te amo.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


End file.
